Winter pea soup with sausages

Press, 24 August 1988, Page 16

Winter pea soup with sausages

This is a cold-weather meal that I make when I want what is now known as comfort food. Although my mother did not make pea soup very often, one of her friends did, and often served it for lunch when we visited for the day. I loved the fact that her house always seemed to have a lingering smell of pea soup. In fact, I can still remember the individual smells of the houses of the relatives and friends we used to visit regularly. You could have taken me, blindfolded, into any of at least a dozen houses, and 1 would have been able to tell you where I was. I certainly couldn’t do it now! I wonder whether people cook too wide a variety of foods, or don’t use distinctive polishes so often, or if it’s just that my nose has grown old and jaded! So here is my pea soup recipe. It makes enough for large, main course servings for six people, but you could thin it down, and make it go much further than this. 2 large onions 2-4 cloves garlic 25-50 g butter 1 cup yellow split peas 1 cup red lentils 9 cups water 1 Tbsp butter

Alison Holst’s

Food Facts 4

2 Tbsp flour iy 2 tsp salt Cut up the onion finely, chop the garlic, and cook them both in as much butter as you think good for you, in a large, heavybottomed pot with a tight fitting lid. Do not let the onion brown, but let it turn a light gold colour; if you have time. Add the peas and lentils, then the water, cover and cook gently for an hour, or until the peas are really tender. Thoroughly mix the second measure of butter with the flour, and drop it in the soup in little bits, stirring constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon until the soup boils and thickens smoothly. If you want a really smooth soup, you can food process it in batches, at this stage, if you like. Add salt, tasting after 1 teaspoon. While the soup is cook-

ing, make the little sausage balls which give it extra flavour. 500 g sausage meat 2 slices bread, crumbed 1 tsp green herbs stock y 2 tsp curry powder % cup milk Mix the sausage meat and other ingredients together thoroughly, using a food processor, if you have one, first to crumb the bread, then to mix everything. Take tiny, marble sized balls, using a teaspoon and wet hands, and shake them over moderate heat in an oiled pan, until they have browned on all sides. It looks nicer if you drop the meat balls into the soup at the table, but it tastes better if you drop them into the soup as they are cooked, then reheat both soup and meat balls together.